New Year's Eve always proves to be the most stressful night of the entire year. Between deciding who to spend this monstrously important evening with, formulating a plan for an actual activity, and, someone help us, what to wear, the night ends up being destroyed by stress before it even begins. In our experience, the pain of preparation outweighs the fun we have, so this year, we're decidedly ringing in 2015 with a bottle of wine and movies about people having a worse time than we are.
Everyone on board the Poseidon (The Poseidon Adventure &amp; Poseidon)
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No matter what your NYE plans are, they will not end as disastrously as these people's. They board a luxury ocean liner heading across the Atlantic Ocean that encounters a rogue wave, capsizing the ship. Water floods through the windows, and most of the ship's passengers die in the fabulous ballroom where they were partying just moments ago. We bet that $500 open bar is looking pretty good right about now.
Michelle Tanner (Full House)
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Queen of Speaking Truths, Michelle Tanner is understandably frustrated as she tries to grasp the appeal of this blasted holiday. Stay up way past your bedtime just to feel alone and make out with your dog? Whhhhyyyy?????
Bridget Jones (Bridget Jones's Diary)
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Bridget may not be having a worse holiday than you are, but she's at least having one that's just as bad. Her booze-soaked Celine-Dion-singing evening is exactly how we envision our New Year's Eve going down (don't judge!), and for that, we love her. Plus, when your resolution involves losing 20 pounds (obviously), properly discarding last night's panties, and avoiding romantic attachments to alcoholics, workaholics, commitment phobics, peeping toms, megalomaniacs, emotional fuckwits, or perverts...you're an ideal NYE BFF.
This sledge hammer (Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve With Ryan Seacrest)
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Though not technically a person, we still would not trade places with this construction tool under any circumstances imaginable. Only Jenny McCarthy could make us envy the unfortunate sledge hammer Miley licked.
"Little" Bill Thompson (Boogie Nights)
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William H. Macy's character in Paul Thomas Anderson's Golden Age of Porn drama is often embarrassed by his porn star wife engaging in public sexual acts with other men, usually asking him to just let her do her thing. At a NYE party marking the year 1980, Bill walks in on his wife and her lover, calmly procures a gun, and then shoots both of them before turning the gun on himself. While we may have wanted to "shoot ourselves" from the stress of the night, we think he's having a much worse night than most of us.
Chandler Bing (Friends)
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Your favorite sarcastic Friend, Chandler, is openly desperate where most of us just silently suffer. As midnight rolls around, he so pines for affection and validation that he jumps up and down demanding some action. NYE lesson to be learned: be careful what you wish for.
Ted (Four Rooms)
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Tim Roth plays a hotel bellhop on his first night of work as he navigates through four different stories, directed by Allison Anders, Alexandre Rockwell, Robert Rodriguez, and Quentin Tarantino. He deals with witches who need his semen (Anders' segment), reluctantly becomes a part of a married couple's hostage fantasy (Rockwell's), is stabbed with a syringe by children he's forced to babysit who set the room on fire before discovering a dead prostitute in the bed (Rodriguez's), and is finally paid to chop off a man's finger (Tarantino's). Needless to say, your night is looking a bit better.
Miranda Hobbes and Carrie Bradshaw (Sex and the City: The Movie)
These usually fabulous ladies had a bummer of a New Year's Eve. After learning that Steve cheated on Miranda and a disaster of a wedding attempt by Carrie and Big, the ladies opted for a depressing night in, each alone (though Miranda was with one of our best friends, Chinese food, while Carrie as with our other bestie, bed). Their nights may start out depressing, but they helped us realize that you're never alone as long as you have a best friend and a fiiiieeerce pajama/mink outfit combo.
Monica (200 Cigarettes)
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Monica is determined to throw an amazing party, but when nobody shows up at first, she becomes upset and a bit desperate. She does the only logical thing a person can do in that scenario: she gets so drunk that she passes out. Everyone ends up coming to her party, including Elvis Costello. She wakes up with a bunch of strangers on her floor and is thrilled, but her night positively sucked, if we do say so ourselves.
The entire cast of New Year's Eve
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No matter what happens on New Year's, at least you didn't star in this awful movie. Just be thankful for that.

Christian Camargo, the writer, director and star of new movie Days And Nights, used his family connections to stock the film with all-stars. The Twilight star is married to British thespian Mark Rylance's daughter Juliet, who produced the film with her Tony Award-winning father, and he was thrilled by the names they brought on board.
He tells WENN, "A little nepotism doesn't hurt! It started with a little bit of nepotism, a little bit of friends, and sort of snowballed from there."
But Camargo insists many of the stars who signed up for the film were friends of his that he persuaded to join the cast based on his script: "I worked with Katie (Holmes) before in the play All My Sons - it was her Broadway debut! I was so impressed with what she was capable of doing and her abilities, and felt they were sort of undervalued and underused, so I was really excited to work with her again because she's really good.
"And it was my first film so I needed to really rely on some friends who would be supportive, but, in addition to that, I worked my butt off on this script and I sort of convinced people that it's something that is not done; to have an ensemble movie is just not done very often, so they jumped at the chance to spend 26 days in, like, a theatre camp and just explore."
As well as Holmes, the film also features his wife and father-in-law, Allison Janney, Ben Whishaw, Jean Reno, William Hurt, Cherry Jones and Michael Nyqvist.

As America's Next Top Model's 21st cycle unfolds, we've decided to take a look at previous seasons to see how often Tyra and her ever-changing panel of judges choose the right model. As anyone who has watched the show throughout the years (and the marathons every time they're on TV) knows, the model you spend all season rooting for rarely wins, no matter how much she deserves to.
Cycle 1
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Who Won: Adrianne Curry
Should Have Won: Adrianne Curry
If only Tyra's first season were a sign of things to come. She picked it right. Adrianne had that special blend of being cool, a good model, and reality TV perfection (which is essential for a first season). She went on to become a "star" on Vh1's CelebReality, and we continued to grow up watching the ups and downs of her relationship with a Brady. That sort of contribution to our adolescence is invaluable.
Cycle 2
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Who Won: Yoanna House
Should Have Won: Mercedes Scelba-Shorte
Mercedes was perfect! She was such a great model, she had the cutest personality, and she was owning the competition while suffering with Lupus. Her final photo and her Billie Holiday photo are some of our favorite in ANTM history.
Cycle 3
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Who Won: Eva Pigford
Should Have Won: Toccara Jones, Yaya DaCosta
Eva was okay, but we loved Toccara. She left too soon, and we began to root for Eva. Looking back on this cycle now though, it's hard not to feel like Yaya is sort of like ANTM's Jennifer Hudson -- she lost, but has the best career possibly out of any of the girls.
Cycle 4
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Who Won: Naima Mora
Should Have Won: Kahlen Rondot
This is a no brainer. Kahlen was perfect. Naima was a good model, okay, sure. But she was quiet and enigmatic. Kahlen was shy, but adorable and relatable. And, if we're being frank, a far superior model.
Cycle 5
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Who Won: Nicole Linklater
Should Have Won: Bre Scullark (or Nik Pace)
We loved Bre. We still love Bre. She will always be one of our favorites. We rooted for Nik after Bre was eliminated, but Tyra didn't seem to care and picked the annoying and whiny Nicole.
Cycle 6
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Who Won: Danielle (Dani) Evans
Should Have Won: Joanie Dodds
This makes us uncomfortable to say, because we really like both girls here. This was one of the rare instances where we would have been happy regardless of who won. For some reason, we always remember this as the cycle that Joanie won though. Clearly she left the stronger impression (although we'll never forget Dani's photo on top of the elephant, while she was sick).
Cycle 7
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Who Won: CariDee English
Should Have Won: CariDee English
We felt really bad when Melrose lost because she was consistently good. She tried so hard to be perfect. Sure, she wasn't the most likable, but she was undeniably a good model. But CariDee had the whole package. She was likable and could model. We would have been happy if one of the twins won too though (just saying...).
Cycle 8
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Who Won: Jaslene Gonzalez
Should Have Won: Renee Alway
We were rooting for Renee from the very beginning. When she came in third place, we obviously started supporting Jaslene just to prevent the bizarre Natasha from winning. Deep down though, we still feel wronged by Renee's elimination.
Cycle 9
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Who Won: Saleisha Stowers
Should Have Won: Jenah Doucette
We never liked Saleisha. She kind of looked like Rihanna if Rihanna were on Disney. We were never into it. Chantal similarly had sanitized feel to her. Jenah shined as the only normal, likable girl in the cycle. She was a great model too!
Cycle 10
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Who Won: Whitney Thompson
Should Have Won: Anya Kop
This is one that outrages us still. Whitney was unlikable and even the judges thought so for most of the season. She just happened to get farther than any other plus-sized model, so they let her win. Everybody knows that Anya ran that cycle as if she were already a professional. Her photo shoot with Nigel? Her Sprite campaign? And don't even get us started on the injustice of eliminating Tiffani Thiessen-lookalike Katarzyna. How did they pick Whitney?
Cycle 11
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Who Won: McKey Sullivan
Should Have Won: McKey Sullivan
Girl was flawless. She was tall, stunning, poised, and had a lovely personality. Honorable mention to Analeigh Tipton though for doing her thing and having a great career.
Cycle 12
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Who Won: Teyona Anderson
Should Have Won: Allison Harvard
Allison. Our favorite contestant in the history of ANTM. This one hurts. We're not quite ready to talk about it.
Cycle 13
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Who Won: Nicole Fox
Should Have Won: Nicole Fox
We loved Nicole and we loved runner-up Laura Kirkpatrick. Tyra didn't have the chance to mess this cycle up.
Cycle 14
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Who Won: Krista White
Should Have Won: Raina Hein
Raina has been working more than anyone else from this cycle -- we've been seeing her pop up on commercials, and a working model is a successful one. Overall, we didn't really like this cycle.
Cycle 15
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Who Won: Ann Ward
Should Have Won: Kayla Ferrel
First of all, Ann's runway walk was not good. Chelsey and Jane were both good models, but there was something about Kayla that we were consistently drawn to. She somehow looked like a classic beauty, yet edgy and modern. She was fieeeeerce.
Cycle 16
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Who Won: Brittani Kline
Should Have Won: Hannah Jones
Were we the only ones who didn't hate Alexandria? We would have been happy if she won, but instead we were left with Brittani. She was a fine model, but on a personal level, we just stopped liking her after that meltdown in panel. Hannah also reminded us a lot of Analeigh from cycle 12, so we had a soft spot for her.
Cycle 17
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Who Won: Lisa D'Amato
Should Have Won: Allison Harvard
TWICE? REALLY? Allison, who broke our hearts when she was runner-up in cycle 12, admits that it sucks to be runner-up twice. She should have won. Twice. She's the best. We'll never be ready to talk about this.
Cycle 18
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Who Won: Sophie Sumner
Should Have Won: ...Annaliese Dayes? ...Laura LaFrate? Maybe Sophie?
This is one of those cycles that had three great girls at the end. At one point or another, we rooted for all of them to win. We're happy Sophie won because she was a cutie, but we loved Annaliese way more throughout the competition. She was like a Spice Girl and a model all in one.
Cycle 19
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Who Won: Laura James
Should Have Won: Leila Goldkuhl
Laura is a fantastic model -- let's just get that out of the way up front. Leila was eliminated, because Tyra rarely makes good decisions, and brought back by the fans who loved her. Clearly she was a fan-favorite and she should have won. Leila was definitely better than runner-up Kiara.
Cycle 20
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Who Won: Jourdan Miller
Should Have Won: Renee Bhagwandeen
Our friend texted within the first episode of ANTM 2.0 saying she couldn't stand the girl who was married and divorced at 18. And she never really made us like her more. On the other hand, from the moment Renee was shown in the casting episode, she had our vote. We were gung-ho from the get-go. Sure, Cory and Marvin were fantastic, but personally we're still rooting for the girls.
Will Tyra make the right choice in Cycle 21?

The camera assistant who lost her life when she was hit by a train while shooting Allman Brothers biopic Midnight Rider in February (14) was among the people remembered during the In Memoriam montage during Saturday's (16Aug14) Creative Arts Emmys. Sarah Jones, 27, was working on a train track in Georgia when she failed to escape the path of the oncoming locomotive.
Her death has sparked a Hollywood movement for safer sets.
Director Randall Miller, his producer wife Jody Savin and executive producer Jay Sedrish have been charged with involuntary manslaughter and criminal trespassing, while the biopic itself has been on hold ever since the tragedy.
U.S. sketch show Saturday Night Live was the big winner at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards, taking home five honours, while Sherlock: His Last Vow, True Detective, documentary series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey and Game of Thrones claimed four awards apiece.
The highlight of the night for many was Orange is the New Black star Uzo Aduba's emotional Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy acceptance speech.
The star, who plays jailbird Suzanne 'Crazy Eyes' Warren on the hit Netflix show said, "I feel so full, that's why the tears come out. I'm stuffed. My cup runneth over right now. I feel absolutely all of those things: I feel full of joy, like a fountain. Mission accomplished."
Prior to her first Emmy win, Aduba told reporters, "All I can hold onto today is this idea of the day I got this job, I was leaving this business, I had quit and now I'm at the Emmys, and I'm nominated for an Emmy, and my show is nominated, and my castmates are nominated."
She received her honour from Morgan Freeman and told the media backstage, "It's like you're walking and you're aware that you're walking toward Morgan Freeman, but you're fairly certain you should still be sitting on your seat. You're like, 'Maybe I'm embarrassing myself, maybe they called somebody else's name and I don't know what's happening'"
There were also awards for Allison Janney (Guest Actress in a Drama for her role in Masters of Sex), and Scandal star Joe Morton (Guest Actor in a Drama).
The ceremony - the precursor to the primetime Emmy Awards, which will be held later this month (Aug14) - was staged at L.A. Live in Los Angeles.

Now that the halfway mark has hit between the dawn of a hopeful 2014 and the inevitable exasperated gasp of relief that another year of harrowing grief is finally over, we're inclined to look back on the past six months of cinematic glory. First, we set our sights to the best performances of the year, both leading and supporting. Next, we turn to movie scenes and moments — the funny, shocking, moving, and just plain weird instances that stuck with us long after we stepped out of the theater. Here's a quick list of some of the most memorable movie scenes and moments we've seen so far in 2014.
Paramount Pictures
The evolution sequence in NoahDarren Aronofsky's account of the great flood jumped levels in progressive thinking when it included a scene that comfortably meshed creationist beliefs with the science of evolution. The sequence, which followed an aquatic amoeba as it grew into a fish, then a lizard, then a series of mammals, until ultimately becoming the impetus for mankind, is not just intellectually rich, but visually dazzling.
Gustave's prison break in The Grand Budapest HotelEvery chapter in Wes Anderson's latest film is terrific fun, but Ralph Fiennes on the run from the law (and the vicious Adrien Brody) is about as merry as it gets... even with the haunting undercurrent in an approaching World War.
The opening sequence in BorgmanThe mysterious Danish picture Borgman institutes an excitement, a levity, and a curious nature all at once with its terrific opening sequence, wherein the title character is drawn from his home underground for unexplained reasons and forced to flee the wrath of angry villagers, and help to liberate his friends from the same.
The "Spaceship, spaceship, spaceship!" gag in The Lego MovieServing primarily as a punchline to a long gestating joke, Charlie Day's Lego character's manic exclamation of his favorite word is the biggest laugh in a very funny movie.
Scarlett Johannson abducting a man with neurofibromatosis in Under the SkinJonathan Glazer's bizarre film is nothing if not evasive, but peaks in its enigmatic nature when the nameless hero/villain Scarlett Johansson, herself of mysterious origins, abducts and seems to warm to a man afflicted with a facial deformity. Cue the process of undress and cannibalistic black liquid floors...
Warner Bros. Entertainment
Ken Watanabe's big moment in Godzilla"Let them fight."
The end credits of 22 Jump StreetChris Miller and Phil Lord embrace their love of genre parody in the post-narrative moments of 22 Jump Street, in which they send their starring duo through a long line of false sequels (entailing their attendance at med school, military school, traffic school... there are a good dozen of these, all of 'em funny).
The statutory rape endorsement in Transformers: Age of ExtinctionLet's get this straight: we're simply in awe of this scene due to how god damn bizarre it is, not at all on board with its message (or even its artistic merits in a movie about robot wars). We can't help but think about Mark Wahlberg challenging the validity of 20-year-old Jack Reynor's romantic relationship with 17-year-old Nicola Peltz, only to see Reynor pull a laminated document from his pocket that exempts him from all legal ramifications of dating a minor. Weird as all hell.
The getaway scene in Night MovesNear unprecedented tension hits when Jesse Eisenberg and his two fellow eco-terrorists attempt to flee the scene after programming a time bomb to detonate an ecologically destructive dam. The trio sits on the midnight river, hoping to avoid both the eyes of passersby and the wrath of a deadly explosive. It's edge-of-your-seat kind of stuff.
Liam Neeson grabbing a gun in mid-air while the airplane aboard which he is a passenger hurdles into oblivion as a team of hijackers attempts to take the whole thing hostage in Non-StopRight?
20th Century Fox Film
The Quicksilver scene in X-Men: Days of Future PastEvan Peters spends very little time onscreen in the latest X-Men picture, but his talents are milked for all their value when he is charged with dashing around a slow-motion Pentagon kitchen to the soothing tunes of Jim Croce.
The grade school scene in SnowpiercerThe most disturbing, macabre, and wickedly fun scene in a movie that has no shortage of any of those three qualities, a very pregnant Allison Pill's grade school seminar in the back half of Snowpiercer stands out as the film's most enjoyable achievement. Pill sells the hell out of lunacy in this sequence.
Paul Rudd walks into a bar in They Came Together Our favorite joke in They Came Together, narrowly beating out Paul Rudd and Amy Poehler's mutual love of fiction books, is Rudd's sullen conversation with a highly redundant barkeep who, let's just say, calls 'em like he sees 'em. Over and over and over.
Nicolas Cage asking a neighborhood kid if he's still MMA fighting in Joe I have no idea why I love this so much, but one brief exchange in the sleepy, somber movie Joe has Cage chatting with a young neighbor in a bodega, asking about how his martial arts practice has been going. It's incredibly peculiar and charming, though I don't expect any of that to carry through here.
The Zola computer reveal in Captain America: The Winter Soldier Although we weren't crazy about the second Captain America movie, we have to tip a hat to the reveal that Toby Jones' Nazi scientist has been living on for the last 70 years in the form of a bulky yet surpemely efficient supercomputer. The sort of weird stuff that we love to see in the crevices of Marvel flicks.

Hit shows Fargo, Masters Of Sex and The Big Bang Theory and TV movie The Normal Heart will be the projects to beat at the 2014 Critics' Choice Television Awards after scoring five nominations apiece.
Fargo, which is based on the cult Coen Brothers film of the same name, will compete for Best Mini-Series against shows like American Horror Story: Coven, Luther and Dancing on the Edge, while the dark drama's stars Martin Freeman and Billy Bob Thornton will go head-to-head for Best Actor in a Movie or Mini-Series, alongside Mark Ruffalo (The Normal Heart), Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock: His Last Vow), David Bradley (An Adventure in Space and Time), and Chiwetel Ejiofor (Dancing on the Edge). Colin Hanks and Allison Tolman have also earned nods as supporting actors for their roles as local law enforcement officers investigating a spate of grisly murders in Fargo.
Masters of Sex and The Good Wife, which landed four nominations, dominate the drama categories - both shows are up for Best Drama Series, while stars Lizzy Caplan and Julianna Margulies are shortlisted for Best Actress and Caplan's co-star Michael Sheen is up for Best Actor.
The Big Bang Theory looks set to dominate the comedy categories with nods for Best Comedy Series and acting mentions for Jim Parsons, Kaley Cuoco, Mayim Bialik and guest star James Earl Jones.
Meanwhile, the TV adaptation of Larry Kramer's play The Normal Heart, which debuted in America on Sunday night (25May14), was also a big hit with members of the Broadcast Television Journalists Association, scoring recognition for Best TV Movie and acting accolades for Ruffalo, Julia Roberts, Matt Bomer and Joe Mantello. There were also a handful of nominations for True Detective, Orange Is the New Black, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones and The Americans.
The winners of the fourth annual Critics' Choice Television Awards will be unveiled at a ceremony in Beverly Hills, California on 19 June (14).

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Gita Pullapilly and Aron Gaudet are the married helmers of Tribeca Film Festival's Beneath the Harvest Sky, a gritty glimpse at deep friendship and small town ennui in the backdrop of small-town Maine. The film is a searingly authentic tribute to an area long overlooked by Hollywood's all-too narrow focus on big stories in big places, and one that shows the directors' commitment to truly capturing a subject down its smallest minutiae. We got a chance to talk to the two directors about how married life influences art, why comparisons to Superbad are always welcome, and why the kids of today are in deep need of a good, old-fashioned coming of age film.
I can't remember the last movie I saw that took place in Maine, but the location is a vivid part of this story. Can you explain the choice of setting?
Aron Gaudet: I’m from Maine. We moved to Maine to make the movie. I grew up about four hours south of where the movie took place. And in the 26 years that I grew up and lived there, never went to that area in Maine. Because there’s just potato farms and there’s not a lot to do there. You never had reason. Four hours south and you’re in Boston so you’d always choose south.
What is it about this place that you felt deserved a story?
Aron: We were definitely wanting to make a coming of age movie like we grew up with, like Stand By Me, or The Outsiders or something, and what I knew about northern Maine and the kids in northern Maine is that they turn 18 and they just want to get the hell out of northern Maine because there’s no opportunities there for them unless they’re a farmer or from a farming family. So we just stumbled across these photos of a potato harvest in northern Maine and were like, "Oh, it’s really beautiful up there. Maybe that could be a setting for that kind of story we want to tell." So we just went up there to see what was up there and kind of fell in love with the area and the people and then felt like, okay there’s definitely a great setting for a story.
Gita Pullapilly: And we have a documentary background, so the year and a half we wrote the script, we were researching through the entire period as well, and that really helped us because we could really get a sense of what each of these groups of people were going through and what their backstories were. The illegal prescription drug trade between Canada and Maine, we never would have thought if we just stayed in New York and started writing the story, but by spending so much time and doing the research, we were kind of surprised and taken aback at just how prevalent the illegal prescription drug trade at the time was. It started to weave into the story in a profound way for us.
Aron: Even in pre-production, our location manager who was from there, he had a location for Aidan Gillen’s character’s sort of garage that he was smuggling drugs through. He was like “oh I got this great place” Before we could use it, the actual guy that lived there got arrested for smuggling cocaine through it. So then we were like, "Okay the location is out, but the authenticity is there."
It clearly would have been a good idea.
Gita: Great location manager.
Aron: Things like that would happen where we’re just like “Okay, this is happening up here." It’ s very much based in reality.
Gita: And we were curious what people in northern Maine would think of the movie and we’re blown away by the response because they’re like “You guys nailed what our life is like up there.” It’s almost like the biggest compliment for us because it’s just like yeah we represented that community and there voice as well as we could.
In making a movie that deals with something as serious as illegal drug trafficking, were you hoping to call attention to it, or were you more interested in simply telling a good story?
Aron: The documentarians in us always think, if there are any social issues in a movie, it can at least open discussions about stuff like that. I think, for us, we went up there thinking, okay we’re gonna do a coming of age movie set during a potato harvest, and then there was so much of this stuff happening that I was like “Oh this is part of the story.” And also, the documentarians in us were like, "Okay, this is where the story goes." This is what’s happening here, this is what life is like, so it just naturally became part of the story.
Gia: I don’t know if you saw our first film, A Way to Get By, it’s a documentary. In that film, obviously there are social issues, but even as a documentary filmmakers, we never like to hit you over the head with a social issue. We’ve always felt that the best stories are the ones where you discover things through the story and the audience can make their own assumptions and judgments through what they feel in the movie. that I think in any form of movie that we make will always be with us, just the subtlety. I think subtlety is so much more powerful sometimes than trying to force it down your throat.
Is there anything that you were hoping, specifically in regards to how this sort of lifestyle is affecting the youth, that people take away from this film?
Aron: What we really liked was that it was a unique setting. The story could only happen there, but for the kids, it felt like it was universal for a lot of kids growing up in rural towns anywhere across the country, and the stuff they’re dealing with. You hear about the same sort of stuff in small towns in Vermont or small towns in the Midwest. It’s interesting to me what kids go through as they’re becoming adults, and a lot of times they find themselves in very adult situations, but they’re 17 and they’re still not sure how to best handle them. I think that makes for good drama.
Gia: I love the idea of loyalty and trust, and I think it’s almost in its purest form in those teenage years where you would do anything for your best friend. I think that’s why we resonate with Stand By Me and The Outsiders. It’s that bond that you have with your buddies that you’d do anything for. And we just felt like those movies didn’t really exist right now, of the Twilight movies that exist out there.
Aron: The bond will always be broken when your friend turns into a vampire.
Gita: And we were just like, isn’t it a shame that teens our age, the films that we resonated with, don’t have a film in this time period that can resonate with them as well. That to us was almost like a fond memory of what we had, and we kind of wondered, “Does that exist here, and can it exist in the present?”
Saying that, and I mean this in an entirely complimentary way...
Aron: [Laughs] The way you set up that question...
Gita: Yeah, like, is this going to sound that bad?
I'm going to compare it to a movie, and I just wanted to let you know that I love this other movie. The one movie I thought about after watching Beneath the Harvest Sky was Superbad.
Gita: Oh, yeah! We love Superbad.
Aron: Same casting director. Allison Jones cast Superbad and also cast our movie. Because of their friendship, and the love between two guys.
Both movies feature a romance on the margins, that takes a backseat to the central friendship. And the boys don't know what's going to happen after high school. They want to stay together but they're drawn to different things.
Aron: In many ways, both of them end up really being a love story between friends.
Gita: There’s something about Judd Apatow’s style where he can get comedy across, but the difference between his comedies and other comedies is that they actually have a lot of heart to it, and that’s what we love. More than anything, Beneath the Harvest Sky is about the heart and genuine love of two people together. It doesn’t have to be sexual, it can be a different way... This might be your most crazy interview.
A lot of the romantic relationships in this movie go sour, and that occurred to me as was funny when I found out the two of you are married.
Aron: It makes us feel better about our relationship. We tear down everyone else. Look at all these jerks. We’re still together.
Gita: I think it’s so funny, and maybe because we are married, we know the difficulties of what it takes to be married, and how you have to work tremendously at it. Especially with us, we’re around each other 24/7 and we love being around each other 24/7 but marriage is incredibly hard and I think most people, it’s like you put on a façade of what these relationships can be like to the outside world, but in the real world, when you open the door and you walk inside the house, this is what real complex issues are like, these marriages. I think it can really be seen through these teenage perspectives. Aidan Gillen, what was the relationship with father and son? You know there’s this repairing of a relationship happening, but we kind of hint that there was something else more, and you see what Emory’s mom is like, and we have one scene and that’s all you need to know about what this woman would be like.
Aron: I think a lot of times too, people up there are just trying to survive, and their relationships get sacrificed for survival, and it makes Dominic and Casper’s relationship that much stronger where for them, they put their relationship before everything else. A lot of other characters will sacrifice a relationship trying to survive or trying to get ahead.
Gita: When we started researching and we got up there, the first thing we literally, verbally said when we drove up to Aroostook County was, “How do people actually survive in towns like this?”
Aron: So much industry, like mills, close. There were 200 farm families all farming the land up there and now it’s all consolidated and there’s six farm families. At the high school, there used to be 200 kids that graduated each year, and now there’s like 12. So the population has just nosedived as people just left. So it’s like, yeah how are people surviving? You have to drive an hour to work at Wal-Mart or you’re working on a farm, or you’re not working and you’re dealing drugs. You’re figuring out a way to survive.
Gita, are you from a small town as well?
Gita: I’m from South Bend, Indiana. Home of Notre Dame. But South Bend outside of Notre Dame is actually a small town. There are just these small communities. And like, Breaking Away was another movie that we watched.
Aron: That was definitely a reference film for us, and set in Indiana.
Going back to people commenting on the authenticity of the film, did you have any specific guidelines or formulas for representing the town?
Aron: We definitely scoured northern Maine for places that we felt like felt like northern Maine. Even talking with our cinematographer, when we were location scouting, I said something to the effect of “If we don’t need hand sanitizer when we come out of one of these locations, it’s not real enough.” So a lot of these places we’d come out of, you’re in these dusty potato houses, or you’re out in a field. We wanted that earthy, dirty feel, but from a distance you look at it and it’s beautiful because it’s just rolling hills but you get in there and it’s dirty.
Gita: I think that represents the larger look of the film. From the outside, everything is breathtakingly beautiful, but once you get a better look inside, you realize it’s dusty and dirty, and there’s a lot of breaks and cracks in it.
And then you go to Boston, which is so interesting because usually in films like this, kids are trying to escape to New York or LA. It's cool that Boston is treated like nirvana. I've never seen Boston treated that way before.
Aron: That probably comes from my growing up in Maine because I definitely viewed Boston as, “Oh, if I could get to Boston.” I think in northern Maine, they almost don’t see that far. It’s like if we can even get to southern Maine, or if we can get to Boston, it’s like a whole nother world to them. Boston is an eight hour drive from northern Maine, so even that just seems like a world away, and growing up, it was always like, Boston is my town.
Gita: And if you asked anyone from Indiana, it would be Chicago so we definitely felt that. I remember even when we were dating, because we actually worked in television news before we actually started doing film, and we were living in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and we were trying to figure out where we wanted to make our next move and live, and Aron was like, "Boston has always been my dream," so we moved to Boston.
Beyond bringing the genre to the present, was there anything about the teen genre or the coming of age story that you thought had been lacking, even in the films you love, something you wanted to get in touch with in Beneath the Harvest Sky?
Aron: Well even some of the better coming of age movies that have been coming out recently, it seemed like it was always a throwback to a John Hughes movie, which we loved growing up too, but that’s different than Stand By Me or The Outsiders or Breaking Away or At Close Range. Some of those ones that are a little darker. So for us, that was something that we felt like was lacking. Can we go a little darker with it? Through the research, this is darker. What they do up there and everything, it’s not a John Hughes movie, it’s different than that, so that was something that appealed to us. The darker teen movie.
Do you think these movies are relatable to all kids, even if they didn't have these elements of crime influencing their lives growing up?
Aron: I do, but any small town kid, they’re going to a party in a gravel pit or doing that sort of stuff there. That sort of harvest farming with friends. I’m sure in towns all across the Midwest, on their breaks from school, they’re doing some sort of farm labor so some can relate to that.
Gita: Even in present day, something like the vodka tampon scene for example. That we discovered in Maine and then we read it in the script and were like “This is really crazy,” and we talked to law enforcement to find out if it actually happened. Then we found out in the Midwest that there’s people doing the same thing. Word of mouth spreads with teens very quickly apparently.
What did you see in your two leads, Emory Cohen and Callan McAuliffe?
Gita: They’re brilliant actors and they have very different talents of how they get their performances out there.
Aron: Their processes couldn’t be further apart from each other, which was interesting to see them work off of each other. Emory was Casper 24/7. We never met Emory until we wrapped production. He was always Casper. Callan was very much “I’ll give you what’s in your script.” They were at opposite ends of the spectrum, but together they were so great. If you talked to them together, they were like a comedy duo. We just loved them hanging out together. They would genuinely make each other laugh and stuff on set and really did form this friendship that played well in the movie.
Gita: They’re both very talented and people consider this to be their breakout roles in a lot of ways so we’re really excited to see what they do next and we also hope that they just continue working with us.
Beneath the Harvest Sky is available on VOD, Amazon and iTunes.
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BBC America
With Orphan Black back on BBC America for its sophomore season, it’s time to revive the Clone Club! Ever since Orphan Black premiered over a year ago, the sci-fi show has garnered a cult following and bewitched viewers all around the world — even members of Hollywood like Wil Wheaton, Patton Oswalt, and Orlando Jones (who all appeared on BBC America’s The Cloneversation to promo the new season). Now that the show is back — and better than ever — let’s talk about of favorite clones, all of whom are played by Tatiana Maslany. Beware spoilers, newbies!
7) Katja Obinger
We really didn’t have time to know Katja before her untimely departure from the world (which is our nice way of saying she was murdered), but from what little we saw, she could have been an interesting addition to the club.
6) Beth Childs
Even though Beth only appears in Orphan Black alive for all of maybe two minutes, her lone scene is what hooked many viewers into the show and deserves its due. So, here’s to you Beth Childs, your death scene is crazy and we love it.
5) Rachel Duncan
Unlike many of the other clones, we don’t know very much about Rachel except that she’s a total ice queen (and we get a bit of a sociopath vibe from her). However, we’re dying to see more of her perfectly cut bob and icy glare this season.
4) Helena
As the craziest clone (like, certifiably insane), Helena is certainly fun to watch on Orphan Black — and by “fun” we mean “actually stressful” because she might die and/or kill off one of the other clones, or Kira, or someone else we love like Felix, Paul, or Art.
3) Sarah Manning
She may be the main character of Orphan Black, but she’s not our favorite clone. She does, however, provide some of the craziest and most entertaining scenes in the show like when she ate soap in the series premiere or bashed her way through a wall in the Season 2 debut.
2) Allison Hendrix
Between her neurotic paranoia and her friendship with Felix, we love Allison’s character a lot. She’s funny, she’s sweet, she’s scary, and she puts a whole new twist on the idea of desperate housewives living in suburbia.
1) Cosima Niehaus
Whenever Maslany is asked which clone she relates to the most, she always answers Cosima (though, probably not simply because they both talk with their hands). Well, Cosima is our favorite too. We love her brains, her fashion sense, her snarky remarks, and her relationship with Delphine. So, basically, everything.
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AMC
I manage, with the same measure of denial that forced down Don Draper's marauding self-hatred for the better part of his adult life, to forget again and again that he and Peggy are no longer on very good terms. So it all but guts me entirely to watch her face his return to Sterling Cooper &amp; Partners with a vicious affirmation that she hasn't missed him a bit. Sure, she's in denial, too, blaming everyone else for her stunted personal and professional successes, as if Shirley in fact robbed Peggy of her reception of Valentine's Day flowers, or Ginsberg of her well-deserved CLIO nomination. Don tops the list, representing to Peggy the architect who designed a glass ceiling so firmly unbreakable, never hesitating to tapdance atop in a gallant display of everything availed to those in the penthouse suite.
But Don has fallen quite a few stories from his skyline view, desperate for everything from his L.A.-based wife's sustained belief that he's still gainfully employed to after-work visits from his ad hoc assistant Dawn Chambers. He swells in fierce agitation when both of these systems shatter this week, ostensibly losing that veneer of validity in the eyes of two more former secretaries: Dawn's priorities lie with her actual boss now (to think!) and Megan is up-ended by the revelation that he's been lying about his professional leave in order to keep from moving out to California to be with her. Adding to a list already occupied by Peggy, Allison, and let's count Ida Blankenship (whose Mad Men Wiki page is written with quite the comically sardonic tone, by the way), and we've got a pretty poor track record for Don re: the long line of mistresses/daughter figures he kept at his front desk. With the last pieces of his old life lost after the shifts in his relationships with Dawn and Megan, Don has no other choice but to move on... back to his old life, that is.
And so we're treated to a sequence as surreal as Roger's LSD trips, as viscerally disconcerting as anything involving Glen Bishop: Don's trip back to the office. Passing over an an offer at a rival firm that would have beckoned him as a royal ambassador, Don instead shows up unannounced at Roger's apartment, barking rhetorical questions about friendship and loyalty. Roger, seizing the opportunity to reupholster his shrinking office team, tells Don to show up the next morning... something that, upon arrival, Don realizes nobody else in power has been briefed on.
AMC
Don's morning at SC&amp;P shows us more of Dick Whitman than we've seen since his wartime flashbacks: the fear that Don works so hard to not only hide but divide from is expertly executed in a scene that feels nauseatingly eternal... in a good way. Even as Don collects encounters, both soothing and innocuously awkward, with the gaggle of creatives whose admiration he still holds tight, we see the battlefield terror sneak back into him — a resentful Peggy isn't the only party unnerved by his return: obsessively pragmatic Bert Cooper and Senior Partner Harry Hamlin are thinking business; Joan knows that her all too delicate grasp of power would disintegrate with a reversal of latitudes that Don's return would bring; Lou Avery is just mad as a nag in heat, confound it! And with all this bad blood, and the board's insistence on a league of belittling professional conditions, you'd think the very same Don who, at the head of the ep, was so obsessed with his image as to berate his old secretary for making him feel like a second priority and lie to his wife for months about his job, would opt out of the deal. But desperate, defeated, and longing for the only place he's ever known to be a home, Don ushers in this new chapter: "Okay."
Intercutting scenes of Don's stimulating professional ascension/degradation is a far weaker storyline, if only for that we've seen it so many times before: Betty Draper, making her first appearance in Season 7, rehashing the same old Betty Draper story. Prompted by her scorn of an impressive working mother, old fashioned Betty accompanies Bobby on a field trip to a local farm, spending her time boosting her own self-image with vacant conversations about the Wolfman and Dracula, sips of fresh-from-the-cow milk, and quips about the revealing dress of the farmer's daughter. But one foul-up by doe-eyed Bobby (who trades her sandwich away because he "didn't know she was going to eat" — that should tell us something about Betty's post-weight loss dietary habits) is enough to remind Betty that she really can't stand her kids. Having seen the same territory tread with January Jones' character since Season 1, in which she treats everyone in her life to a cold hostility and victimizies herself all the while, we should expect this final season to treat us to something knew, or at least conclusive. But her misanthropy is in its usual form, her self-pity is operating at normal speeds... her trip to the farm gives us nothing new in the Betty department.
Thankfully, we have gold in the Don department this week, especially in his reunion with Peggy's in the penultimate scene of episode. She waits the duration of "Field Trip" to catch the anxious Don alone in the break room in order to deliver her unforgiving salutation, which bites like the dickens: "I can't say that we've missed you." But in terrific form, the unsolicited jab finds itself sandwiched between two instances of much greater mutual favor for the longtime colleagues. With Don's barely shielded pain, we rush immediately back to his soft-eyed kissing of her hand at the close of Season 5, the moment he was forced to acknowledge that his daytime daughter figure was graduating beyond his hold. The second moment illicited by Ms. Olson's harsh proclamation is one that we haven't seen yet: the ultimate reunion — be it charged by a newly leveled playing field for the pair, a joint derision of the powers that be, a refurbished drive to make something of value of themselves, or just your plain old realization that they might be all each other has — of Don and Peggy, and their good graces. In her insistence in assuring Don just how little he means to her, Peggy shows us just how much he does. And in the childlike wince he can't work hard enough to mask, he returns that favor. So now it's only a matter of time.
Episode grade: B+, with bonus points for Bobby Draper's proud proclamation: "We were having a conversation!"
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